ResearchLibrary

The Frances Mulhall Achilles Library at the Whitney Museum of American Art is a comprehensive research collection in the field of twentieth-century and contemporary American art. It was originally built on the personal libraries of the Whitney's founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and its first director, Juliana Force.

Of paramount importance to American art research and scholarship, today’s collections of books, periodicals, archives, and special collections are accessed by the Whitney’s own staff as well as by visiting scholars and researchers. Combined, the Library’s resources chronicle the development, over seventy-five years, of an institution committed to American art and artists.

Access to the Collections

The Frances Mulhall Achilles Library is open daily to Whitney staff, and offers research appointments to Whitney Museum members, visiting art historians, PhD candidates, graduate students, gallery staff, and other researchers interested in the Museum, its history, exhibitions, permanent collections, and artists.

In order to schedule an appointment to access Library and Archives material, researchers must first:

Provide institutional affiliation (letterhead or institutional ID may be requested).

Submit a brief project description.

Compile a complete list of the materials they wish to access, including titles, call numbers, and library locations; all paging is done in advance of your visit. Our online catalog, WhitneyCat, is accessible at library.whitney.org.

Request an appointment at least one week in advance of the desired date by emailing a brief request to library@whitney.org.

The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum have each played a key role in shaping New York's vital cultural landscape, contributing significantly to the history of art and culture in the United States. Both founded in the 1930s, these museums were also each led by women who served as inaugural directors--the Whitney by Juliana Force, long associate of founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and the Guggenheim, then the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, by Hilla Rebay.

Each director acquired a considerable library during her tenure, collecting materials ranging from gallery announcements to the rare and unusual periodicals and books of that period. These important resources influenced the two women, who in turn influenced the vision and development of their respective institutions and the exhibitions produced.

Working in partnership to both preserve and make Force's and Rebay's personal libraries more widely available, the Whitney Library and Guggenheim Library digitized key material from each. The digitized selections, which are displayed together on the Internet Archive to highlight their commonalities and differences, are of special interest to curators, art historians, and other researchers and scholars, including those focusing on museum studies, women's studies, exhibitions and the history of New York City.